ch the great Apostle proclaimed "in the midst of Mars'
Hill;" and yet when their intellectual pride was required to bow itself
down, to acknowledge something more than a Neology, and to believe in the
supernaturalism of the Resurrection, they only "mocked" the teacher. St.
Paul, therefore, departed from the city where his cultivated mind had
been stirred at the sight of so many great intellects "wholly given to
idolatry[22]." [Sidenote: Athens afterwards a Bishopric.] But yet his
visit was not without its fruits; and Dionysius, a member of the great
Council of the Areopagus, is believed to have been the first Bishop of
the Church in Athens[23].

{40}

[Sidenote: Corinth the centre of the Church in Greece.]

From Athens St. Paul went to Corinth, and it was in this luxurious and
profligate city that he founded a Church which became the centre of
Christianity in Greece. [Sidenote: St. Paul turns from the Jews.] The
obstinate unbelief and blasphemous opposition of the Corinthian Jews
caused St. Paul, for the first time, to withdraw himself entirely from
the services of the synagogue; but he continued at Corinth a year and six
months, being protected, according to God's special promise to him, from
all the machinations of his Jewish enemies. [Sidenote: Opposes the
errors of Greek philosophy.] This lengthened stay was probably occasioned
not only by the presence of "much people" who were to be converted to
Christ, but also by the necessity of strengthening the Corinthian
converts against the subtleties of the heathen philosophy by which they
were surrounded, and with which St. Paul was well fitted to cope by his
early education. The errors of Gnosticism seem also to have penetrated
at this time as far as Corinth.

[Sidenote: A.D. 55. A.D. 56.]

After leaving Corinth, St. Paul paid a hasty visit to Ephesus, and then,
for the last time, returned to Antioch.

Section 5. _St. Paul's Third Apostolic Journey._

[Sidenote: A.D. 56.]

[Sidenote: Ephesus the centre of the Church in Asia Minor.]

The next journey of the great Apostle of the Gentiles led him first
through Galatia and Phrygia, "strengthening" the Churches he had already
founded, and then brought him to the rich and important maritime city of
Ephesus, destined to be a third great centre of the Gentile Church, and
to hold in Asia Minor the same position as did Corinth in Greece {41} and
Antioch in Syria. Here again St. Paul was forced to withdraw altoget